Current Affairs 6 January 2021 – IAS Current Affairs
Current Affairs 6 January 2021 focuses on Prelims-Mains perspective. Major events are :
- India lost $2.8 bn in 2020 to Internet shutdowns
India lost $2.8 bn in 2020 to Internet shutdowns
Why in News?
India suffered the biggest economic impact in the world in 2020 due to Internet shutdowns, adding up to 8,927 hours and $2.8 billion losses.
Key Facts
- It is a report by the UK-based privacy and security research firm Top10VPN.
- Of the 21 countries that curbed Web access last year the economic impact seen in India was more than double the combined cost for the next 20 countries in the list.
- The actual economic impact for India may be even higher than the $2.8 billion figure which itself was double the losses on account of Internet shutdowns in 2019.
- India continued to restrict Internet access more than any other country over 75 times in 2020.
- The majority of these short blackouts were highly targeted, affecting groups of villages or individual city districts, and so were not included in this report, which focuses on larger region-wide shutdowns.
- report made a separate mention of the extended curbs on Internet use in Kashmir, with suspension of services lasting from August 2019.
- Calling it the longest Internet shutdown in a democracy according to the report.
- The restrictions have negatively impacted the distribution of medicine, businesses and schools.
- J&K accounted for the highest share of Internet blackouts in the country,
- As per the report, the world saw 93 major shutdowns during the pandemic year.
- Countries such as China and North Korea, which are known to restrict access to the Internet, are not in the list prepared by Top10VPN.
About the Top10VPN Assessment
- Economic cost of Internet shutdowns, the firm used the “Cost of Shutdown Tool” from Netblocks and Internet Society, which uses the Brookings Institution Method.
- Regional shutdown costs were calculated by determining the region’s economic output as a proportion of its national gross domestic product.
Source : Indian Express
GS III : Challenges to internal security through communication networks, role of media and social networking sites in internal security challenges, basics of cyber security
Daily Current Affairs : Click Here